When your toil has been a pleasure, you have not, as Thoreau says, “earned money merely,” but money, health, delight, and moral profit, all in one.
To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
The price we have to pay for money is paid in liberty.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathise; and so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.
It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.
If you want a person’s faults, go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know.
